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Israel
Aerospace Industries (IAI) is working on a new anti-ship missile
designed as a primary armament for naval vessels. With dimensions
similar to the Exocet and Harpoon, Gabriel-5 represents the
latest member to IAI's Gabriel Missile family of naval attack
missiles. The new Gabriel 5 is designed to offer superior performance
compared to most contemporary missiles, particularly when employed
in littoral waters against sophisticated soft- and hard-kill
protected targets.

The
new configuration is believed to have evolved from an earlier
version which replaced the Gabriel II in Israel Navy service.
The existence of such missile was never confirmed but the fact
that Israel hasn't updated its Harpoon (RGM-84D) missiles into
Block II configurations (RGM-84L), unlike most other Harpoon
users which implemented this option.

Hints about a possible existence of such weapon surfaced in
the early 2000s, as IAI participated in an international tender
to equip the new Singaporean Navy frigates. Eventually Singapore
selected the Harpoon missile.

The new Gabriel 5 is design to be superior compared to most
contemporary missiles, particularly when employed in littoral
waters. It uses an advanced active radar seeker backed by a
sophisticated weapon control to optimize operational effectiveness
in a target congested battlespace. The missile significantly
improves target selectivity capability, especially in littoral
waters, typically congested with marine traffic, and interference
generating extensive and complex false target signals. As an
advanced attack missile Gabriel 5 can penetrate the target's
protection, both soft- and hard-kill defenses. It is designed
with sophisticated electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM)
dealing with chaff, advanced decoys and active ECM.

Gabriel 5 is expected to be part of a new offensive and defensive
system suite under development at IAI's Missiles and Space division.
This new family of weapons will also comprise the Barak-8
wide area, long range air defense missile and multi-mode, a
n integrated combat management system and IAI/Elta's multi-function
EL/M-2248 MF-STAR shipborne
phased array radar system, which Elta claims to be superior
to the SPY-1 AEGIS radar.